The actual doctrine of the Trinity took shape around the 3rd Century AD. The idea was probably floating around from an earlier date, but it was not yet formed into an official church doctrine as it is today.
STRUCTURE OF THE CHURCH
During this time the structure of the church became more formal and structured than it was in the book of Acts. The political structure of the church was run by bishops who decided which rituals and doctrines were to be practiced and accepted as orthodox beliefs (meaning accepted as official doctrines of the church). House churches gave way to larger meeting places and more formalized church buildings where a strict organization began to solidify.
CULTURAL BACKGROUND AND ATMOSPHERE OF THE TIME
It is very important to note that the cultural climate of the church also changed during this time. Originally, the Jewish disciples of Christ were the leaders as well as the authorities in the church. These were people such as Peter, John, James, and later Paul. But by the 3rd Century Jewish bishops no longer held any positions of authority or influenced doctrinal decisions.
JEWISH BISHOPS OF JERUSALEM
Eusebius of Caesarea provides us with a list of the first fifteen (15) bishops of Jerusalem who were of Jewish origin from James the Just (brother of Jesus) through Judas, the great-grandson of Jude, brother of Jesus. Not the Judas who betrayed Jesus. After the Bar Kokhba revolt (c. 135), Judas ceased to be bishop and all subsequent bishops were Gentiles.
From this time forward the Church became governed by Gentiles, and the center of authority changed from Jerusalem to Rome. This means that there was literally no input from the Jewish thought or ideology concerning the being of God, the Revelation of God, and the identity of the Christ.
It was during this time the Gentiles began to become influenced by Gentile Philosophy and as well as some Pagan ideologies. Perhaps they did this in order to be accepted by the philosophical community as being a valid religion as well as appealing to the Pagans to convert to Christianity. We really can’t speculate on their motives for such a change of attitude and we probably shouldn’t.
The result of this influence was the creation of detailed doctrines about the being of both God and Christ, many of which did not exist in the Bible or originate in Jewish writings but were required and forced upon believers if they wanted to remain in the official church. These doctrines resembled more a philosophical curiosity rather than Jewish/Christian theology. They tried to answer such questions as:
- How many natures did Jesus have?
- If he had two natures, was his divine nature able to communicate with his human nature in what they called a hypostatic union?
- Arguments arose even about the very substance of God. What was he made of?
And from these questions came the definition of the very being/essence of God as a Trinity.
Most of these doctrines are way beyond the limits of man’s understanding. And many of these doctrines are more of what you might find in cults today. It was man’s pride that made him believe that he could know these deep mysteries of God.
One thing that I learned over many years of dealing with cults is that they will simply establish an idea as true without scriptural support, repeat it over and over again as though it were ture, and then take ambiguous scriptures on the subject and twist them into saying what they want them to say without any reference to clear and distinct scriptures on the topic. This trend, however unfortunate, is also used by members of churches today who believe that their truth is inspired by God but don’t have any Biblical verses to back it up.
Being a Christian became based upon one’s theology rather than one’s faith as shown by your conduct, morality, and character. If you believed in the wrong doctrines concerning these issues, you risked excommunication or worse.
THE POLITICS INVOLVED
The Trinity was first mentioned by Tertullian (AD 160–225). But he was later apostatized (a form of excommunication) and later joined the Montanist sect, a group considered to be heretical.
The bishop who actually championed the Trinity was Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria Born c. 296/298 and died May 2, 373. He was Bishop from 328 to 373. He is the one responsible for creating the current definition of the Trinity or at least the main concept.
Athanasius admitted to not being able to read Hebrew and when he quoted from the Old Testament he did so from the Greek version, the Septuagint. His lack of understanding Hebrew would have made it extremely difficult for him to fully grasp the Jewish understanding of the Name of God, YHVH, as the only true revelation of God, as well as the Jewish concept of God himself.
But Due to his persistence, the bishops voted the Trinity as the Orthodox position on the being of God at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
This was not an easy sell since prior to this vote Athanasius, himself, was excommunicated by Pope Liberius and exiled 5 times prior to convincing the rest of the bishops to finally accept his doctrine. And yes, they had already established that the Bishop of Rome was superior to all the other Bishops, laying the foundation for the Papacy and signifying the establishment and authority of the Roman Catholic Church at Rome. Because of this, I believe that this particular version of the Trinity is based upon early Roman Catholic theology rather than Holy Scripture; yet it’s the one accepted by most Protestant Denominations.
THE FALSE DILEMMA
So what exactly were the choices of the bishops on the doctrine of God’s existence?
Well, it came down to two choices: Either Arianism or Trinitarianism. And I want to make it clear that at more than one time in church history the majority of bishops believed in Arianism. That’s the belief that God created the Son of God before time began. He was not exactly equal to God the Father, but second in command; perhaps having the authority of an archangel like Michael. But His power was definitely subordinated to the Father.
Trinitarianism, on the other hand, is defined as believing that the Son of God always existed as the Son and is co-equal with God the Father as is the Holy Spirit. And that they exist equally as three persons. There are more subtle differences, but let’s just deal with these for now.
For more information click on this link: Word Study On Only-Begotten (Hypostasis)
It was really a false dilemma that was established here in that the choice appeared to only be between these two beliefs, but there were others at the time that never made it into the political arena. Probably because they didn’t have the political backing that these two ideas had.
In most cases today we only have the writings of the critics of these optional beliefs as these teachings were considered as heresy and were ultimately destroyed. After studying what was available concerning them, I believe that many were purposely misunderstood because of prejudices for either the Trinity or Arianism. Some of these alternatives were:
- Adoptionism
- Sabellianism
- Monarchianism (which may be even more popular among present-day believers than you might think)
- Modalism (again a very popular idea circulating among believers)
- Subordinationism (another very popular belief)
- Apollinarianism
- Patripassianism
For more information on these heresies please click on their hyperlinks.
It would take too much time to even give a brief description of each one, and it is beyond the scope of this paper to do so, but I can tell you that these are all considered to be heretical even though many Christians even today quietly sitting in their pews believe in them without knowing they would be considered heretics by Orthodox standards.
It would be a good study for you to at least read about these heresies; but the subject of heresies is very complex because of the overlapping ideas between them and subtle differences in the meanings of the Greek words used in their explanations as well as the questionable accuracy of the source material.
What appears to have taken place is that the burden of truth was not on what Scripture taught, but rather by limiting the choices to only 2, one would now only need to prove that the other one was wrong and that would somehow logically prove the other to be right. This is the very definition of a false dilemma. The assumption being that one was true and the other was false.
I have yet to hear anyone be able to properly define exactly what the Trinity says about God’s being without creating conflicting ideas and falling into one of the heresies that I listed above.
MANY DISAGREEMENTS
They did limit the choice down to 2 options, but it really wasn’t a clear-cut choice. There were problems with trying to make each choice as clear as they possibly could, but words got in the way.
Athanasius in his Trinitarian formula declared that God was three persons and used the Greek word ὑποστάσεως (hypostasis) for person. But arguments about the meanings of Greek words such as hypostasis muddied the waters of exactly what he meant by this word.
Did it actually mean person, or did it mean essence, being, or something else? And the argument still goes on today. Let me give you some examples to make it clear.
In the NT, the author of Hebrews (perhaps Paul) uses this word hypostasis in Hebrews 1:3. Hypostasis is translated as person in some Bibles, but being, substance, essence, or nature in the newer versions. Here is the Bible verse in question.
Hebrews 1:3 (KJV)
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
Before we continue, I want to point out that the translation of person here creates a very difficult problem for Trinitarians. The word “person” here relates directly to God, not the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. This is then implying that God is one person rather than 3 persons. So it appears that the newer versions corrected this problem such as the NIV. Here is the revised version from the NIV of this verse.
Hebrews 1:3 (NIV) The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
And the RSV is as follows
Hebrews 1:3 (RSV) He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Another verse where the word hypostasis is also used appears in Hebrews is 11:1 which says:
Hebrews 11:1 (KJV) 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Here, the word is translated as “substance.” Looks like there’s a lot of confusion as to the meaning of this word. The BDAG (Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich lexicon/dictionary of Biblical Greek) defines it as The essential or basic structure or nature of an entity, substantial nature, essence, actual being, reality.
Notice that this definition does not include “person.”
I have noticed that in comparing Bible translations, sometimes translators will use meanings that best fit their theology in order to protect their doctrines rather than make the best choice for the context of the sentence as it might cause doctrinal disputes.
With all this considered, and even after the bishops voted in favor of the Trinity, there was still a great deal of ambiguity and lack of clarity about the idea of persons, character, identity, nature, and being as how it referred to God. Even philosophers/theologians today haven’t been able to attach clear meanings to these concepts.
It might be surprising for many to find out that these early Council Meetings were no less confusing than the heresies they condemned. And there was and still is confusion in the church as to which councils were considered valid and authorized by God and which ones were not. It was certainly not the church’s finest hour.
FAST FORWARD TO TODAY
This doctrine of the Trinity was established by the votes of bishops at a council meeting during the 4th century (325 AD). Since then, there have been 21 council meetings. But today, most Protestant denominations no longer follow the edicts of all these catholic councils. Yet, they seem to make a distinction between those in which they agree with as being orthodox (approved by God) and those in which they disagree as unorthodox.
Some believe in the authority of only the first 2 councils. Others accept the first 4. And some accept the first 7 as authoritative.
Many Evangelicals say that they only accept the Bible and do not accept any of these councils as legitimate authority of truth regarding doctrine; yet they stand firm by some of those council’s doctrinal decisions without scriptural proof or evidence.
The history of the Trinity has led us to where we are today. We have so many reference sources available to us to help us to uncover some of the problems that we inherited from the early church. But we do need to recognize those problems and what led up to them. Up until now the church has used fear to enforce this doctrine. But this is not new. In the past reluctance to believe in the Trinity was punishable by torture and death. How could a doctrine of God be true when it had to be enforced by such horrible punishments?
Even today it’s still used as the litmus test of faith orthodoxy. If you don’t accept the Nicene version of the Trinity created by Athanasius, some might deny that you’re a real Christian. And some might even call you a heretic. But in my own experience if you were to ask these accusers to explain exactly what the Trinity was, they would be unable to come up with a cogent, intelligible definition. They would probably fall more into the category of a heretic than the one that they were accusing.
Before we leave this topic I want to make it very clear that the idea of a Trinity does exist in the Bible. It was mentioned by Jesus in Matthew. And the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is undeniable. However, the way scripture refers to the Trinity is not the same as the way Athanasius defined it. And it’s not the same as the Trinity that the bishops voted in as church doctrine. And it’s not the one that many repeat in the Nicene Creed every Sunday. This will be the topic of my next paper.
For further information on what the Bible really says about the Trinity read my next article.
PHILOSOPHY & CHRISTIANITY 
One thought on “History of the Trinity”